A.R. Moxon, Verified Duck 🦆Let me give you a thought experiment:
Imagine not just a ban on qualified immunity for authority, but a reversal; a new legal framework, under which authority bears greater responsibility than civilians in matters involving force—as it should.
What we have now is a "qualified" immunity for authority against citizens that effectively functions as absolute immunity; the legal assumption that in interactions with civilians, it is police who have the greater claim to fear, and who are justified in any force they deem appropriate in response.
This shift isn't a framework that says it is legal to go out and shoot authorities; it is rather a recognition that, in conflicts between police and civilians, it is civilians who far more justifiably can fear for their lives, and civilians who are far more justified in defending themselves.
Under this framework, it is civilians who should enjoy greater considerations and protections following (hopefully rare) violent interactions. This might sound extreme or unrealistic to you; I'd invite you to sit with how obvious it is, and how warped social beliefs around policing have become.
If our authorities exist for the protection of the people, then the laws should exist for the protection of the people, not the protection of authorities. If the law exists for the protection of authorities, then the authorities do not exist for the protection of the people.
In a conflict between civilians and authorities, it is civilians who should receive benefit of the doubt; who should be allowed to claim to be frightened, who should receive qualified immunity under the law.
In interactions with authority, civilians are the ones who usually wind up dead, and unlike authorities, civilians are not trained for armed conflict. Civilians have the more justifiable claim to fear—a FAR more justifiable claim.
Since authorities should exist for the protection of civilians, in an interaction with civilians, it is they who *should* be in more danger than civilians—at least as long as they are armed—because their equipment and their training must prepare them to handle that danger without a tragic outcome.
If the interaction results in a tragic outcome, then it is authorities who must be presumed responsible.
If authorities can't accept this natural consequence of authority and equipment, they should not have the equipment or the authority ... and stripping them of both is an even better outcome.
If an authority without equipment to brutalize and kill civilians makes them worthless at their jobs, perhaps they were never good at their jobs, and maybe we never needed them in the first place.
And maybe not having them at all is an even better outcome still.
Speaking of persuasion: If we passed a law reversing the application of qualified immunity, and then started enforcing it in courts, do you think it would persuade law enforcement that it no longer enjoys absolute immunity from consequence for murdering civilians?
I think it just might.
Do you think it might persuade the sort of people who want to shoot other people in the face from taking on an authority that no longer permits them to shoot people with absolute impunity?
I think it might.
Do you think it would persuade authorities to de-escalate rather than escalate? Do you think it would start persuading citizens that the system worked for them instead of corrupt abusive power?
I think it might. It would be a start, as we work for total abolition of police and the carceral state.
SelSo often persuasion is framed as one person changing another's mind. But a person is the only one with the power to change their mind, and appeals to logic and morality are only effective on those who have decided to be moved by logic, who have chosen a morality of equality rather than of domination.
When persuading those who refuse to enter a shared reality or respect humanity, it is far more effective to persuade them of consequences—that if they engage in abuse, they will be understood as an abuser and treated as one.
This persuades them without giving them authority over the persuasion.
Again, putting first things first doesn't preclude persuasion or oppose persuasion; it frees persuasion from the abuse it suffers by putting it in its proper place, and it opens up persuasion, by allowing us a wider field: more methods of persuasion, and more effective.
It puts first things first, and it revokes the absolute immunity that our gang of American Nazis claim for themselves.
Tofu Golem@JuliusGoat
Absolute immunity = no rule of law.
The most basic part of the definition of the rule of law is that it applies to all.
Loss of the rule of law is one of the definitions of a failed state.